959 
B874'5 


UC-NRLF 


B    3    553    abM 


p^..,.,.-,. 


VERSES 


BY 

TWO 
UNDERGRADUATES 


1905 


/^ 

^m 

^^^ 

ibarvarD  College  Xlbrar? 

FROM 

V^C«,<VV  W  M  C  ^^5>  <  OO^^ 

EACH  TO  EACH. 


If  thou  in  years  we  Jcnoir  no  more 

Hast  sotnethnes  loved  these  little  soigs^ 

Tale  from  me  now  v^hat  long  before 
To  thee  belonged  and  still  belongs. 

It  came  to  me  from  eery  far 

Over  a  spacious  lake  of  dreams 

To  this  garish  world  that  only  seema^ 

From  the  dim  sn^eet  hills  that  really  are. 

My  heart  is  a  reed  on  the  windy  shore 
A7id  the  voice  of  me  is  dumb; 

Hut  thou  knev^est  Uden  'inine  of  yore 
And  wilt  arise  and  co)ne. 


Hymn  to  Night. 


C\  Thou  who  holding  nature  to  thy  breast 

^"^      Dost  hush  the  broodings  struggling  in  her  soul, 

While  all  around  thy  soothing  shadows  roll, 
And  the  East  murmurs  softly  to  the  West, 
•'The  darkness  and  the  silence  are  the  best," 
Grant  us  the  quiet  calmness  of  thy  sv/ay,  in  our  life-we<|ry 
rest. 


The  day -god  swoons  upon  his  purple  bed, 

Dyed  in  the  life-blood  of  a  thousand  flowers; 
Above  him  skip  the  never -ceasing  hours 
Racing  towards  doom,  while  o'er  his  sinking  head 
Thy  noiseless  presence  leaps  with  noiseless  tread, 
Thy  wide  eyes  peer  across  the  western  rim,  over  the  sup- 
set's  red. 


The  Eternal  Power  musing  o'er  the  abyss 

Smiles  in  his  thought,  and  kindled  with  delight 
Unspeakable,  the  quivering  vault  of  night 
Bursts  into  fiery  stars  who,  rapt  in  bliss. 
With  myriad  eyes  strain  towards  that  smile  and  kiss 
The  darkness  all  about.     O  Night,  thou  art  incarnate  love- 
liness. 


042 


Cui  Fata  Parent. 

■XJISTHAT  though  a  thousand  sages 

Thundered  beneath  the  slough, 
The  Mongol  of  the  Ages 

Is  the  Mongol  of  the  Now. 
Not  omenless  the  finger 

That  points  across  the  sea 
Where  the  angry  storm-dogs  linger 

In  the  leash  of  destiny! 

And  knowing  the  requital — 

It  is  written  in  The  Book 
How  he  digged  and  hid  his  title 

For  the  toil  he  would  not  brook — 
And  knowing  the  requital, 

Is  it  not  worth  thy  breath 
To  rescue  what  is  vital 

From  the  quicksand  that  is  death? 

Older  than  all  thy  brothers, 

M'ghtier  born  than  they. 
Thou,  Teacher  of  the  others, 

And  sleeping  life  away! 
The  Master  comes  ;  no  longer 

Thy  birthright  disavow. 
For  Jacob  still  is  stronger 

And  night  is  closing  now. 

From  Behemoth  no  bellow 

Moves  from  the  sluggish  mire, 
(God  save  us  from  the  yellow 

When  yellow  turns  to  fire!) 
The  lamps  of  Death  are  burning, 

The  watchers  are  at  hand, 
And  there  is  no  returning 

For  whom  the  Fates  demand. 


Amoretta. 

"XTtTHO  is  it  that  goes  tripping  by  ? 

Her  darling  locks  kiss  the  pure  skin 
Of  her  white  neck,  her  little  chin 
Wistfully  held  on  high. 
Who  is  it  that  goes  tripping  by? 
Mad  heart  be  still! 
Tremble  your  voices  cooing  doves, 
O  calm  your  voices  wooing  doves, 
My  love  goes  tripping  by. 


Who  is  that  goes  singing  by? 

Her  thrilling  voice,  so  low,  so  light, 
Lulling  the  sleep  of  nestling  night 
Under  the  starry  sky. 
Who  is  it  that  goes  singing  by? 
Mad  heart  be  still! 
Tremble  your  voices  cooing  doves, 
O  calm  your  voices  wooing  doves. 
My  love  goes  singing  by. 


Sonnet. 


""I  ""HERE  is  a  dim  unreachable  desire 
That  mystifies  the  glory  of  the  dawn, 

And  fills  me  with  a  sense  of  more  withdrawn, 
The  more  withdrawing  as  I  the  more  aspire ; 
That  through  the  trembling  echoes  of  the  choir 

Shivers  in  waves  of  v/andering  sympathies, 

(And  harmony  no  longer  satisfies, 
Because  I  caught  a  beauty  that  is  higher.) 

If  on  some  morn  I  could  have  scanned  the  East 
And  watched  the  sun  unveiled  by  doubt  arise, 
And  felt  the  joy  of  liberty,  and  heard, 
Uncloyed  by  sweeter  sounds,  the  love-crazed  bird, 
If,  crushed  by  loviiig,  mystery  had  ceased. 
Would  I  have  wakened  up  in  Paradise? 


For  a  Portrait. 


A    background  of  dim  trees  whose  dreaming  shade 
"^^  Leans  wondering  o'er  her  uptiirned  face.    The  light 
Daintily  strays  across  her  cheek  and  bright 
Falls  on  her  floating  hair.     As  though  the  maid, 
On  summer's  day,  light-footed,  hence  had  strayed 
And  some  fair  scene  full  dawned  upon  her  sight. 
Filled  with  a  vague  and  half-unknown  delight, 
Smiling  she  gazes.    Gently  backwards  laid  v 

On  the  glad  air,  her  head  rests  and  eyes  wide, 
Locks  in  the  wind,  all  naturalness  and  grace 
She  stands;  a  £aint  look  half  as  she  had  sighed 
In  mild  content  dreams  o'er  her  wistful  face. 
As  Orpheus*  form  had  met  her  eyes  a  space. 
Or  Pan's  far  pipings  on  the  distance  died. 


They   and  Thou. 


T  call  them  friends,  Dear  Heart,  whom  circumstance 
Led  to  my  way; 

Others  I  should  have  known 
Choosing  the  other  chance, 

For  friends  may  come  and  go  in  one  brief  day, 
Creatures  of  circumstance : 

No  man  may  walk  alone, 
Others  I  might  have  known. 

Dear  Heart,  my  path  along  the  shifting  years 
Must  have  been  drawn  to  thine  ; 

For  though  preborn  upon  a  glimmering  star, 
Immeasurably  far, 

I  should  have  yearned  across  the  infinite  abyss, 
And  spanned  it  with  a  kiss 
And  grasped  thy  hand  in  mine. 
Adown  the  pathway  of  the  shifting  years 
I  should  have  softly  led  thee  to  the  music  of  the  spheres. 


Melancholy. 


TDOW  thy  proud  head,  O  stubborn  god  of  sea! 

^^Stoop  that  huge  brow  and  let  those  tangled  locks 
Tumble  o'er  thy  low  form  and  kiss  the  rocks, 

Thy  footstool,  in  a  great  humility. 

Let  melancholy  breathe  her  soul  on  thee, 

Calm  thy  fierce  waves  and  fill  thy  surging  breast 
With  drowsy  languor,  make  thy  billows  bound 
Dreamily  slow,  with  a  soft  chiding  sound 

Like  the  far  voice  of  weary  agony, 

Or  sob  along  the  shore  in  sweet  unrest. 

And  thou  O  Moon!  Make  pale  thy  wistful  light. 

Let  its  wild  beauty  dream  through  heaven's  spaog 
Like  a  wan  smile  upon  a  maiden's  face  ; 

Pour  thy  beams  on  the  dark,  disclose  the  white 

And  trembling  arms  of  all-surrounding  night 

Clasping  the  world;  or  as  toward  thy  far  throne 
The  solemn  deep  holds  out  its  yearning  lips, 
So  let  the  soul  that  of  thy  radiance  sips 

Spurn  its  abode,  and  with  a  mad  delight 

Flit  toward  thy  melancholy  sphere,  alone. 

Oh  it  is  sweet  to  lie  within  a  grove 

Where  hyacinth  and  lily  on  the  air 
Breathe  heavy  incense,  and  in  mild  despair 

Loiter  and  dream  beneath  the  shade,  to  rove 

In  mournful  fancies  of  despairing  love, 

Madness  and  pain;  to  hear  the  drowsy  drone 
Of  honey-laden  bees  with  sleepy  wings 
Fanning  the  balmy  breeze;  while  echo  sings 

With  murmuring  lips,  around,  beneath,  above, 
The  deepness  of  the  dreamy  monotone. 

Oh  it  is  sv/eet  to  peer  with  wondering,  wide, 
Far  eyes  into  the  night,  and  feast  the  soul 
On  the  swift  worlds  that  through  the  darkness  roll, 

To  lean  o'er  a  clear  lute  from  which  there  slide 

Piercing  delights,  and  hear  from  its  slim  side 

The  quivering  music  skip;  ay,  through   all  things 
To  see  the  wistful;  and  in  the  full,  clear 
Harmony  of  the  deathless  worlds,  to  hear 

The  yearning  chord  that  in  its  deepness  glides, 

The  passionate  tone  that  through  creation  sings. 


"If  We  Wait  till  the  Close?' 


^O,  dust  is  the  beauty  of  my  flower, 
And  all  because  I  kept  it  here 
Beyond  its  hour. 
Praise  Heaven  !  a  fate  is  near 

To  keep  our  eyes  from  vision  of  the  end, 
That  we  might  see  our  sullen  souls  as  drear, 

The  higher  love  outgrown  of  Friend  to  Friend, 
Too  barren  for  a  tear. 


Death's   Kiss. 

A  H  once  your  quiet  eyes  were  calm  and  deep 
"^     And  wistful  with  much  dreaming!  Long  ago 

Your  solemn  lips,  so  innocent  of  woe 
And  delicately  parted,  seemed  to  keep 

Faint  musings  with  themselves,  and  murmured  low. 
But  that  was  long  ago. 

And  I  who  saw  and  loved  you  from  afar 

Prayed  a  hushed  prayer— the  first  I  ever  prayed — 
That  God  might  keep  you  safe,  and  unafraid 

I  looked  up  through  the  night  at  my  one  star, 
Moving  mysteriously  and  bright-arrayed; 
And  silently  I  prayed. 

While  you  passed  singing  tenderly  and  low, 

Wandering  through  life's  meadows   with  sjow  tread. 
Death  laid  his  kiss  on  your  beloved  head.     '         ' 
But  that  was  long  ago. 


The  Philosophers. 

XXTE  waich  you  trafficking  below, 
Ye  valley-children  (who  reveal, 
Unmeant,  the  mysteries  we  feel  )j 

Coming  ye  prayed  of  us  to  show 

The  Potter's  everlasting  wheel; 
Such  things  as  we  must  yet  conceal 

With  patience  bide ;  we  know,  we  know. 


Silence. 


O  WEET  Music  revels  in  her  own  delight 

And  sighs,  **  O  slavish  Silence — short-lived  death 
Of  airy  splendors — how  my  whispered  breath 
Hath  slain  thee  wholly,  as  the  dawn  the  night!" 

Even  with  the  words  the  sound  of  them  has  passed: 
Quietness  dims  hushed  voices  till  they  cease, 
Soothing  their  aching  beauty  into  peace. 
Silence  remains,  inexorable,  vast. 


No   Longer  I  Exalted. 

"lyTO  longer  I  exalted  to  self-believed  supremacy — 

A    supremacy    self-believed    in    moments    of  musical 

rapture, 
But  I  a  mere  nauseating  monad, 
Having  had  just  enough  acquaintance  with  men's  ways  to 

appoint  myself  a  warning  to  you. 
Now  consider  these  words  which  shall  be  everlasting  truth: 
There  is  but  one  unpardonable  sin — 
The  permitting,  the  fostering  of  life  without  a  passionate 

heart ; 
Herein  are  all  insincerities,  lies,  coldnesses  (grosser  than 

foully-directed  and  uncurbed  lustings), 
Herein  is  fickleness. 
He  is  foredamned  by  all  religions  and  by  the  man  of  no 

religion — 
That  is  he  who  says, 
In  this  thin^^that  I  do  I  take  no  joy. 
Yet  is  there  nothing  else  in  -ivhich  I  could  take  more  joy. 
Pity   no  more  the  Shelleys  confident  of  some  day  being 

understood. 
Nor  the  vigorous,  chained  Columbuses, 
Nor  any  man  who  can  be  sure  of  his  own  greatness,  and 

find  more  potent  applause  in  rocks,  waterfalls,  the 

melody  of  thrushes. 
Pity  only  the  ineffectual  man,  the  man  mediocre  and  inert, 
He  who  is  unquestionably  capable  of  yawning  in  the  mo- 
ments which  are  his  utmost  strain  of  passion, 
He  who   is  not  put  into   any  prison,    but  stagnates  more 

contemptibly  than  those  who  throng  prisons, 
(No  one  ever  undertook  to  imprison  a  dying  skunk); 
Therefore  come   and   listen,   and  then  go  away  and   act 

quickly. 
Otherwise  you  will  think  several  times  too  much,  you  will 

become  effete,  indifferent,  musty, 
You  will  become  theoretical. 

I  have  endeavored  to  express  a  mood  and  have  expressed  it. 


Psyche. 


/^BASELESS  I  rush  on  my  round 
^^      Of  ceaseless  motion,  and  hurled 
By  the  will  in  myself  and  the  sound 

Of  the  voice,  which  speedily  whirled 

My  being  onward,  with  glee 
I  run  on  my  circle  and  spring 
To  that  Power  whose  throne  is  the  world, 
Who  rules,  moves  and  is  everything;. 
Of  which  I  am  but  as  a  spark 
Of  the  flame,  which  illumines  the  dark 
And  limitless  waste  of  the  world. 


I  am  but  a  thought  from  his  brain, 

A  drop  of  the  soul  in  his  breast; 
Through  suffering  and  anguish  and  pain 

I  rush  at  my  being's  behest 
And  pass  to  new  forms  again  ; 

For  such  is  the  will  in  my  breast. 

And  when  my  circle  is  done, 
Drav/n  by  the  omnipotent  power 

Of  that  which  hath  made  me,  I  run 
As  a  moth  to  the  candle.     That  hour 

I  am  that  which  ruleth  my  soul, 
Myself  and  my  Maker  are  one, 
I  am  lost  in  the  depths  of  his  power. 


Amalfi, 


TXT" HEN  we  shall  come  where  years  ago 

Eden  I  built  for  thee, 
There  where  hot  noons  with  humming  low 

Beguile  the  sleeping  sea, 
All  the  sweet  dreams  thy  soul  shall  know 

That  seemed  too  sweet  to  be. 

There  we  shall  lie  in  the  warm  sand 

Together  lost  in  dreams. 
By  orange-laden  breezes  fanned 

And  perfume  from  cool  streams. 
And  shall  not  care  while  hand  in  hand 

What  is  and  what  but  seems. 

That  haze  of  childhood-born  Romance 

Shall  fetter  us  no  more, 
And  every  load  of  circumstance 

Our  lives  aforetime  bore 
Shall  melt  within  that  silver  trance 

Beside  that  silver  shore. 

Thy  soul  from  mine  among  the  spheres 

No  longer  far  shall  be, 
Nor  sightless  fears  nor  useless  tears 

Shall  part  thy  love  from  me, 
When  we  come  where  in  distant  years 

Eden  I  built  for  thee. 


Urania. 


'TTHE  mistress  of  the  soul  adown  the  years, 
*  Up  from  the  shadowy  ages,  on  her  dance  | 
Delightful,  trips.     Her  ever -changing  glance 
Now  moves  the  world  to  joy  and  now  to  tears. 
Life's  beauty  in  her  utterance  appears 

And  still  she  sings  intense,  the  truth  that  burns  behind  our 
hopes  and  fears. 

Adown  the  years  she  trips.     A  dazzling  throng 
Immortal,  follow  her,  the  sacred  nine 
Drunk  with  life's  beauty  as  with  ruddy  wine 
Purpling  the  mouth.     Music  and  art  and  song 
With  mad  delight  lead  the  mad  dance  along. 
They   move  like  satyrs  in  a  bacchanal,  passionate,  fierce 
and  strong. 

Yet  not  the  Ogygian  god  with  fiery  breath 
Inflames  their  blood.     Inspired  by  the  light 
That  blazes  from  pure  beauty  and  the  might 
Of  winged  thought,  triumphant  over  death, 
They  speed  along,  with  eager  panting  breath 
To  reach  the  Infinite  Beauty,  whose  far  light  dazzles  the 
world  beneath. 

And  Harmony  was  there,  and  Genius  too 
Flashed  by,  with  fleet  foot  spurning  the  light  cloud 
On  which  he  trod.     And  ever  half-aloud. 
Faint  musings  from  his  depthless  rapture  flew. 
Quivering  the  air.     And  Orpheus  v/ho  grew 
From  childhood  up  with  deep-eyed   reverie,  whom  deep- 
eyed  reverie  slcv/. 

And  with  the  rest  trip  on  Ideals  and  Graces, 
Shadows  and  Dreams,  and  Fancy  only  bound 
By  her  own  will.     With  a  dim  murmuring  sound 
Of  god-like  music,  all  with  eager  faces 
Dash,  through  those  short  and  yet  life-teeming  spaces 
Which  we  call  centuries,  as  life  would  flee  the  dark  death 
that  him  chases. 

Then  was  the  v/orld  one  dream  of  beauty.     Then 

Free-willed  Imagination  did  create 

Marvellous  fancies,  v/hich  to  contemplate 

Are  wistful  pleasure.     In  those  ages  when 
/Fair  thoughts,  like  stars,  shone  in  the  minds  of  men, 
/  And  god-like  forms  with  god-like  power  wrought,  in  hill 
^  and  field  and  glen. 


The  Cry  From   Galway. 

(And  thir.  reply  from  a  Fifth  Avenue  kitchen) 

THE  voice  of  my  Fathers  in  the  lone  wild  wail 
Of  the  v/est-bornc  wind  comes  to  me  ovcr-cca, 
With  a  dream  of  consolation  for  the  promit5es  that  fail 

And  a  vision  for  the  broken  of  the  things  that  cannot  be. 

Lo!  in  my  hearth  where  the  ashes  lie  dead, 

(And  the  embers  of  Ambition  lie  as  gray  and  as  cold) 
Is  a  symbol  of  the  new  life  whence  the  dream-built  hopes 
have  fled, 

And  the  dim  far  beck  of  my  fathers  to  the  old. 

I  have  rotted  my  soul  with  the  sluggishness  of  knowing* 
I  have  jarred  against  the   wall  where  no  more  can  be 
known, 
And  the  rustle  of  the  moor-sand  is  the  tread  of  my  going 
To  the  waters  of  loud  Galway,   to  the  green  hills  of 
Tyrone. 

The  yearning  of  my  Fathers  leaps  up  in  my  soul 

For  the  subtle  tests  of  motive  in  an  age  of  barren  act; 

For  the  self-obscuring  vision  of  the  heaven  of  the  whole, 
And  the  mystic  distant  waters  veiling  gross  ephemeral 
fact. 

The  echo  in  my  being  of  the  vague  primordial  cry 

Is  a  silent  sick  aversion  to  the  growing  of  the  New ; 

And  the  essence  of  my  nature  rises  in  me  to  reply: 

I  am  coming,  O  my  Fathers,  I  am  coming  back  to  you! 


Mirror. 


/^  sing  glad  soul,  up  from  the  sod 

To  heaven's  bosom,  not  o'er-awed 
The  dust  aspiring  from  the  dust, 
Till  God  look  down  and  look  on  God. 


Autumn  Leaves  in  June. 


A  T  dawn  I  walked  the  hilly  pass  ; 

The  warbler's  wavering  tune 
Joined  with  the  fragrance  of  the  grass 
To  tell  me  it  was  June. 

Roused  from  the  stronghold  of  his  nest 

Fluttered  the  busy  wren  ; 
I  felt  a  bound  within  my  breast 

And  life  was  good  again. 

The  echoes  of  a  happier  day 

Once  more  within  me  woke — 

Alas  !  I  saw  beside  the  way 
A  branch  of  withered  oak. 

It  was  the  leprous  hand  of  death 

Laid  on  the  throne  of  Heaven — 

It  was  the  vapor  of  his  breath 
Damning  the  once-forgiven. 

Ah  !  In  the  beauty  of  the  morn, 

I  know  not  anything 
So  bleak,  so  hopeless,  so  forlorn 

As  Autumn  leaves  in  Spring. 

And  when  my  winter  comes,  I  pray 

To  disappear  too  soon 
For  men  to  find  vie  by  the  way — 

An  Autumn  leaf  in  June. 


Silent    Heart. 


npHE  fading  music  is  fled, 
^      The  shadows  creep  on  the  wall, 
The  mourners  wail.  She  is  dead^ 
And  singing  circle  the  pall. 
But  I  only  sit  far  apart 
Silent,  with  silent  heart 
And  low-bowed  head. 


There  comes  a  £ar  voice  from  the  skies 

Beyond  where  the  shadows  are  fled. 
The  watchers  are  closing  her  eyes. 

The  mourners  wail,  She  is  dead. 
But  I  lean  to  the  voice  from  afar 
And  read  in  each  quivering  sur, 
Eternity  never  dies. 


♦AC9.B7918.905v 

THE  HOUGHTON  LIBRARY 
P  December  1931 


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